No legal standing: Amartya Sen responds to VBU’s eviction notice

‘Pratichi,’ Sen’s home, stands on Visva-Bharati campus at Santiniketan in Birbhum district.

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Sen was sent the final eviction notice on April 13

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Responding to the final eviction notice sent to him by the Visva-Bharati University (VBU), Nobel laureate and economist Amartya Sen asserted that the institution’s claim on a part of the leased land covered by his ancestral property on the campus had “no legal standing”.

In an email to VBU joint registrar and estate officer A K Mahato, Sen said, “We have seen a statement issued by some parts of Visva-Bharati about my ancestral home at Pratichi, Santiniketan, which has been in the possession and regular use of my family since 1943. I am the holder of the land, and it was passed on to me after the death of my parents Ashutosh Sen and Amita Sen. They also purchased other land in close proximity to the leased land.” This is the 89-year-old economist’s first official reply to the eviction notice issued by Visva-Bharati

In an email dated April 17 (Monday), Sen wrote, “The use of the land has remained the same over this long period (in fact 80 years). Any contrary claim to this leased land before the expiry of the lease cannot stand. The magistrate of the area has noted that the existing arrangement should be recognised and that no interference or breach of peace should be allowed,” said Sen. The economist added that he will be back in Santiniketan in June. Visva-Bharati’s April 13 notice said that Sen had failed to respond to the institution’s previous letters and a March 17 eviction notice on his alleged illegal occupancy of a portion of land and that an eviction order will be passed on April 19.

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‘Pratichi,’ Sen’s home, stands on Visva-Bharati campus at Santiniketan in Birbhum district.

Since 2022, VBU vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty has been claiming that Sen is in possession of 1.38 acre of land on the Santiniketan campus. Chakrabarty has said that Sen’s father, who was a professor at VBU, had rented only 1.25 acres of land on a 99-year lease in 1943 and thus, the remaining land should be returned to the university, as it has been illegally occupied by Sen.

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